The office has suffered some bad headlines this year, grappling with a large backlog of vehicle registration renewals, playing a role in outdated boundaries being used in a county school board election, and struggling with the implementation of a state-directed purge of presumed-dead voters that was later delayed.

Last week the office was sued by the League of United Latin American Citizens, which alleges the county rejects more voter registration applications than other counties and targets minorities in voter purges. The county in 2009 settled a similar lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party.

Sullivan, 55, who has represented District E on City Council since 2008 and was on the Humble school district board before that, helps run his family's industrial services company in Channelview.

Improvements vowed

He said he would improve customer service in the tax office through improved employee training, better internal communication, increased outreach and better use of technology, such as accepting credit card payments for more services and delivering property tax bills electronically.

"Traditionally, Republicans don't challenge Republican incumbents, but I did see that there's room for great improvement throughout all branches of the tax office," he said. "That's why I decided to run, knowing things needed to be fixed. I'm looking forward to the chance to go over there and do it."

Bennett, 59, worked in the county office of court administration as a legal assistant and as a genealogy researcher. She said she wants to ramp up voter registration efforts, including at high schools, and, if the budget allows, lengthen office hours.

Bennett said she filed for the office because she is concerned that it is overrun with Republican cronyism, which she said results in efforts to restrict minorities' voting rights. She said 15 years as a county employee put her in tune with the needs of staff, whose morale, she said, is low.

"The employees are not wanting a lot more than just a good, safe place to work without politics being attached to their jobs. I wouldn't bring politics into that office, and I believe Mr. Sullivan would. … Mr. Sullivan is no more than a political hack."

Sullivan took issue with that.

"That's political rhetoric," he said. "She is not accurately describing either me or my practices. I'm proud of the service I give all constituents."

Platform for policy

First-time candidate Jesse Hopson, a 23-year-old Libertarian, retail store manager and advocate of "citizen government," said he sought county office because of his belief that Washington, D.C., is beyond hope for reform and voters must pay more attention to local government.

Hopson views the tax assessor post as a platform to influence policy, such as advocating for the abolition of property taxes and the privatization of vehicle registration.

"Having someone within the office who doesn't have an accounting background is not necessarily a bad thing," Hopson said. "I'll be able to point out in simplistic, layman's terms to the constituency: Here's what the property tax rate is, here's what you pay, here's where the problem lies, here's what we need to fix."